Prometheus

So Ridley, is that it? Really?

Because, to be honest, a few months back I did not really think that the sf film I would be enjoying most at this time of year would be Iron Sky…

I mean, you directed my two favourite films of all time, Alien and Blade Runner and you go back to science fiction and this is what you give us? This? This pretty but sprawling mess, with plot holes the size of a planet. You were always a visual director but in the past at least your films made sense. I can understand there might want to put some unanswered mystery in it… leaving something for a sequal (I generally hate that stuff but I understand why) and / or create some awe and 2001 style mystery. But to throw so much up into the air and address almost none of it? Plus things that just make no sense at all – like what the hell was David doing infecting the archaeologist? Why? What was his motivation? This is just bad writing that should not have made it past the first draft, never mind appearing in the final film. I really think you got an easy ride from the critics, because from a less revered film-maker, things like the mapping expert getting lost – when never mind his own equipment, there’s a great big holo-map which people back on the ship could have just looked at and told him where to go – would have got you been laughed out of town.

Plus not only are there numerous gaps in logic we have weak, inconsistent, characterisation and terrible flat, on the nose, dialogue. None of the characters act like the experts they supposedly are, just a bunch of idiots. I could go on (like, why did they have to troop back and forth to the ship so many times?) but it’s not good for my blood pressure.

Okay, to be honest, deep down I kind of expected it. It’s not like you’ve produced a true masterpiece in quite some time. I mean there’s been good films – Gladiator, Blackhawk Down and American Gangster come to mind – but there’s a quite a few not so good. And that Robin Hood thing was down right awful.

And then there was the trailer. I mean the teaser trailer was clever. But the actual trailer… I had ‘oh no, I think is showing too much’ worries at the time, and so it proved, making the climax of the film something to just be sat through rather than enjoyed because so much of it had been shown in advance. But that probably wasn’t your fault, Ridley, as it seems the way that every big film is marketed now. When the actual clips from the movie appeared my worries increased because the dialogue sounded just terrible.

To be honest I don’t really feel that disappointed or angry that this is yet another failed Alien film – I’ve already gone through that with Alien 3 and especially Resurrection. I just feel a bit sad at what might have been. To be honest I wish you had made Monopoly instead.